Sale date 4.24.10

Linda Hays

Monday

Apr 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2010 at 11:07 AM

What a contrast a week can bring. I feel lucky that I was able to go to any sales this weekend, given the monsoon we experienced. But Saturday morning had a few flirtations with sun, so I took in five sales.

I started out with a moving sale on Garth, where I bought two miniature picture frames. I was happy with that until I started walking back down the sidewalk and witnessed a couple picking up a lamp with a funky dotted pattern on the base (circa 1960?) and a perfect shade. I hadn't seen the lamp on my way into the sale. Sometimes it's the direction of your approach that determines what you see or what you miss. I remember a grindstone at a sale a couple of years ago ... same thing. I saw it as I was leaving, just as someone else was telling the proprietor they wanted it. Only $5 and it coulda been mine, all mine. : (

Back in the car, I headed for the next location I'd circled in the classifieds. I was almost to the street, when I saw a sign for a second sale, so I veered right and ended up in a neighborhood I hadn't been in before, even after living in Columbia more than 20 years. At this sale, I found a nice little plant guide from the American Horticultural Society. The purchase money went toward a fundraiser for Haiti by an MU club. These smart young women also used their sale to cross-promote two upcoming fundraisers they are doing with Chevy's and Shakespeare's. Sometimes a sale is about more than the small stuff.

The sale I was first looking for was on Highridge Circle, but either I couldn't see it or they decided not to stage it in the rain. So I moved on to the next one I'd marked. As I pulled into the cul-de-sac and started up the drive, I realized the "funky lamp" people were ahead of me. Drat. They had proven to be fast-acting people with tastes like mine. But I refuse to pick up my pace in such instances. I've seen people actually run from their cars to a sale. While I understand their sense of urgency, bustling is just never a good look. : )

At this sale, I found a 10-cent print that I will give to a friend. It's a publicity photo of the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. My friend and I went to a movie there in 1970 when we were in NYC with a school group. Not being familiar with how things worked, we mistook intermission after the movie for the end of the performance and went back to the hotel. Yes, we completely missed the Rockettes. Now, of course, you can see them in Branson, but I'm happy enough to have seen them in a carport in Columbia.

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